


i have lost my love (i just sit in silence)

by rxs



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: AU, Angst with a Happy Ending, Exes, F/M, I really do think it qualifies as a happy ending, Romance, but it's up to you i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 05:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6039463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rxs/pseuds/rxs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How could he explain the rest?  How Clarke was somehow outside of all that darkness. With her serene blue eyes that never once looked away from the roughest parts of him, she was everything he was afraid to ask for, yet everything he craved.</p>
<p>"...Clarke." In the end, Bellamy could never explain her. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	i have lost my love (i just sit in silence)

**Author's Note:**

> This was a long, tiresome journey to perfection. A Bellarke Secret Valentine to @ravens-reyes on tumblr. Who, among many prompts, gave me exes. and you know me, I thrive in angst so I rolled with it. 
> 
> Thanks to the Bellarke Whatsapp Chat for putting up with my rants and my breakdowns over it. To @lackingstealth, @rashaka, @yourmarvelhigness & @raincityruckus who all gave me their time to beta and their screaming comments about the pain. 
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you love reading it as much as I loved writing it.

“I’m not sure I wasn’t half in love with her…the first time I saw her, y'know?” he says as he plays with his third drink, debating how drunk he should get tonight. Octavia would scowl and say he shouldn’t drive drunk, and usually he would be rational and give the bartender his keys. But she’s _here_ after all these years, she’s back to little shittown Ark. With her perfect little eyes and her prim and proper ways. Clarke’s here.

To get married.

Because that’s his life.

“Fuck,” he says, and downs the drink.

**

“The first time we met, it was…November? Yeah, yeah she was wearing this… ridiculous fancy hat with two blue pompons. She had this…this…” Here he stops to snort, his hands waving so much that the drink sloshes over the rim of the glass.  “Some ‘holier than th-thou’, prissy attitude. God, she was hot.”

The bartender gives him another shot.

He drinks.

Tequila tends to make him chattier, and the bartender is apparently bored enough to listen, so Bellamy lays it all out there:  Clarke was everything he wasn’t supposed to get. Smart, funny, sarcastic. Bitchy and stubborn enough to make him want to pull his hair out.   The type of girl you only think about when alone because she drives you crazy, puts your veins on fire, and makes your entire head spin.

“Our lives were shitty, me and O,” Bellamy told the bartender, “and our mom tried but she wasn’t great at being a parent, but Clarke was…”

He trailed off, grunted, and took another sip of his drink. How could he explain the rest?  How Clarke was somehow outside of all that darkness. With her serene blue eyes that never once looked away from the roughest parts of him, she was everything he was afraid to ask for, yet everything he craved.

“…Clarke.” In the end, Bellamy could never explain her.

**

“First time I took her out, it was to Grounders,” his favorite hamburger joint; this little truck run by Raven—a beautiful Latina who made the best hamburgers in town. “Got her the greasiest hamburger they had…” Here he grins and puts down the glass for a second while the bartender refills.

Her delighted moan after the first bite had not left him alone for an entire week. She always complained about the fancy dinners her mom had forced her to go as a kid.  And while her father did try to indulge her in hamburgers, they used to be gourmet and fancy, so Bellamy could do nothing but drag her to Grounders and _“Show you what a real burger is, Princess”_ with that slow curling smirk of his.

Their kiss tasted of hamburgers, soda and cherry ice cream.

**

That September, Octavia participated in a dancing number for the Light Festival and Bellamy had taken Clarke to see her. Both girls had been getting along quite well and Octavia had insisted Clarke come along.

“ _You can go look around the fair and have that romantic dinner you’ve been planning for weeks after we’re done, brother_.” Bellamy hadn’t blushed—not at all.

So he picked Clarke up from the museum she worked at as a curator, and together they drove to Ark’s Light Festival. The stands and streets were decorated in various colors; every single one of them had a different signature light.

“It’s supposed to remind us that life is beautiful and painless and soft, sometimes. Even when bad things and darkness surrounds us,” Bellamy told her. “Mom used to take us every year; she was convinced life could be good eventually.” Clarke had smiled warmly at that. It wasn’t easy to make her smile, but every time she did, Bellamy felt like the world could be conquered. That life could be more than the multiple odd jobs he had and that barely paid the bills.

Clarke’s smile had been the most wonderful of balms.

And in this light, he suddenly felt worthy of every single one of them.

“I still remember…it was like seeing the twilight shine on the sea, she was _everything”_ Bellamy said as he swished his drink around the glass.

Octavia, in true Blake fashion, had been wonderful— all elegance and charm. “She was born for this, wasn’t she?” Clarke said, as she walked hand in hand with Bellamy through the main street and looked at the different food stands.

Bellamy had smiled, so proud and soft. Yea, he was really proud of O; she was the one good thing that life had given him.

_‘Well, maybe two good things,’_ he thought as Clarke dragged him to inspect the nearest Indian food stand.

They had kissed in the middle of the dance floor—the soft sound of the local band playing and the whole world eons away—soft and precious; a kiss true to new beginnings.

“I wonder if it was that night that made me realize it wasn’t… a fling. That dance… Clarke was _it_ for me,” Bellamy whispered. He’s still too sober if he can’t dull the ache of memories. If he can’t handle the fact that those soothing twilight smiles had now become the bitterest and most haunting memories he once cherished.

She had destroyed every single good thing he had felt about them, with a goodbye and a ‘may we meet again’.

_‘And yet, you still love her, you drunken failure.’_

“Another one, please.”

The whiskey keeps pouring

**

“The last time we saw each other, heh, was the last time we made love. Can you believe it?”

That night after the festival had marked the first of many nights in the throes of passion. Hands roaming, desperate kisses against the front door, shallow breathing all the way to the bed; Bellamy explored her like she was the last mystery on earth— unknown and sacred. Clarke breathed his name like a poem, soft and full of emotion; it was the most erotic night of his life.

And it just kept repeating, in his apartment, in hers. They just couldn’t get rid of the euphoria, the pleasure, the aftermath. The reminders they were alive and breathing and _feeling._

“Best damn night of my life…and it had to be the last one too.”  Bellamy snorted. The bartender was probably tired of hearing the story, but he didn’t give a damn. Clarke was getting married to the woman she should be with. ‘ _If she just wouldn’t have fucking chosen here of all places to do it… what a bit_ -‘ No _._

_‘Clarke was many things, but never a bitch’._

“Just a heartbreaker.” he heard himself say, as he lost himself in the memories of that night.

_‘I love you.’_

_‘Bellamy…’_

_‘I…I know it’s too early for you to hear it, and that you’re scared and so am I, but Clarke I do. There’s nothing I can do to hide it and I won’t.’_

_‘Bellamy…’_

_‘Don’t say anything, I just want you to know and think about it, yeah? Just…just give it a chance. We can work something out and we’ll find our way through this. I know you’re scared about relati-’_

_‘Bellamy I’m leaving tomorrow to Polis.’_

_‘What?’_

_‘Lexa called. There’s an opening in the museum and they want me. It’s an awesome opportunity and you told me, right? That I should chase my dreams and never look back. This is my dream, this is what I want, what I’ve wanted forever, and I’m taking it. This…. this is the last time we’ll see each other.’_

_Her face gave away nothing, for once, not even her eyes. She had suddenly returned to this cold, prissy, a-grade spoiled girl he had first met. Had it been all for nothing in the end? Had he gotten his heart stolen just to be so cruelly cast away? Was she even going to say goodbye?_

_‘So that’s it? You were going to leave tonight and not say anything?’_

_Annoyance was dripping from her scoff._

_‘I was going to leave a note…’_

_Yeah. Because what they had was, apparently, enough to wave off with a note. And he never got_ that _memo._

_‘What about your apartment? What about Octavia, Raven? You were going to leave without a word to them too?’_

_Silence. They knew._

_Fucking hell was he the only clueless one?_

_‘Fine, get out.’_

_‘What?’_

_‘Get out, Clarke. Go back to your pretty life filled with warm sheets and grand apartments,’ the tone in his voice was scathing, hurt. ‘I knew you’d get tired of slumming it with me—poor kid with a shitty apartment that’s good only for fucking and company.’_

_That finally got_ something _to flash in her eyes, but he was so consumed by rage he couldn’t find out what it was._

_‘Don’t you dare! you know that’s not me, Bellamy.’_

_‘Well turns out I didn’t know you that well, Princess. Just go…get out!’_

_‘FINE!’_

_‘FINE!’_

She waited until the last minute to board. He just downed the last of her favorite tequila, alone, in his couch that smelled like her.

**

“Hey, big brother.” A soft, sympathetic voice rings from the other side of the bar, making Bellamy put his (probably) 10th drink down.

“Heeey, sis,” he slurs back, his sister is looking at him with those soft Blake eyes. The same ones his mom used to look at him when he was scared and had a nightmare. Sometimes, he thought, Octavia was the version his mom would have been, if the world had been kinder to her.

“We need to go take you home, come on…” Octavia took some bills out of his wallet, paid the bartender and took Bellamy by the shoulders. “C’mon, there’s a bed waiting for you.”

“Why is she here, O? How could she do this?” His eyes were starting to sting. Fuck, Clarke always had such a strong grip in on his heart, but today, on the eve of her wedding day, nothing felt more brutally cruel.

“I don’t know big brother, but I’m here for you.”

The drive to his apartment was quiet. He was sure tomorrow would bring more than just a physical headache, but Octavia was here.

_If only Clarke was here instead…_

He barely stumbled into his room while Octavia left a couple of aspirins and a bottle of water on his nightstand. She tucked him in and stroked his hair when Bellamy finally let his emotions overwhelm him to the point of actual tears and sobs.

“I’ll stay with you until the sun rises again.” he heard O say.

_Another of mom’s sayings._

He fell asleep to memories of brown and gold hair, not sure which one was less painful.

**

He woke up to the sound of muffled screams from the tiny living room in his apartment. His head throbbed and the screams, gradually gaining precision and intensity, were not helping.

_“what… doing…here”_

_“just….speak… minute”_

_“no… you….nothing…hurt him!”_

The first voice was clearly O, no one could shriek as high as her. The second voice though…that was harder to figure out, since they were talking so low.

_“I didn’t mean to!”_

_“You did! You did when you left him after he told you he loved you! You ran and you didn’t look back and you don’t deserve to talk to him.”_

Oh.

_Oh. Clarke._

_Clarke was here. Clarke was_ here. _On the day of her wedding._

_What was she doing here?_

“I know what I did was terrible but …”

_“_ Terrible? You left him for your ex-girlfriend as soon as she called about the job. You left him broken and confused and convinced he would never be enough to make anyone stay! YOU left him to drink himself to oblivion for days and then…”

A scoff.

“..then you have the guts to come back to marry her here? What now? You in your pretty white dress, standing in his kitchen, came to make him remember what he’s lost?”

_“I LEFT LEXA AT THE ALTAR. OKAY?”_

He needed to get up. He needed to move and open that door and put a stop to this, he knew that. But that last sentence had completely rendered him motionless. For so many days he had wished to hear those words.

For so many months he craved a fairy tale ending, a story worth telling. How Clarke had left everything for him. But he knew fairy tales were only that and resigned to a bleak, grey life after Clarke.

“I left her there because I couldn’t go through this, I couldn’t pretend I could do everything I was expected to do. I couldn’t pretend that if I kept myself away from Bell I would protect him from me. I can’t pretend anymore Octavia. I always loved him, and being away from him broke me in ways you’ll never understand…”

The silence stretched until Bellamy thought she had left, he still couldn’t get up.

She loved him.

Joy and grief and rage and hope all spread in his chest at the same time. He had never felt so many things in his life, surely he was still dreaming.

“..but I’m not here for that. I just want to see him, to apologize. To tell him I’m truly, truly sorry I never gave us a chance. We were friends before we were together, and I hated myself every day. Life isn’t anything if I can’t have Bell there.”

His legs finally moved and ignoring his still raging headache he burst through the door. Eyes wide and heavy breaths

“Do you mean it?”

Fuck. She was more beautiful than ever. Cloaked in a white dress, skin tight with beautiful blue embroidery. Her soft curls resting on her shoulders, but it was her eyes that were his perdition—filled with tears, remorse, guilt and all the things she never said.

“I do.” Clarke barely croaked out. “I do. I do and I’m so sorry, Bellamy. I’m so, _so_ sorry. “

Octavia was looking at him with the most conflicted eyes he had ever seen, but he knew the answer to that plea. He always had. For Clarke the answer would always be the same.

“I forgive you. I always will, Clarke.”

.

They kissed again in the tiny kitchen of his messy apartment. And nothing ever felt more like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry with me at tumblr (griifinclarke). Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
